A WOMAN who survived the Coventry Blitz has uncovered a remarkable letter she wrote to reassure her family she was okay.

Mary Latham was 19 when she penned the eight-page letter to her sister Marge, who had earlier moved to the safety of South Wales with her three-year-old son Derek.

It was written just a few days after the raid of November 14, 1940, and reveals the terror in the air raid shelter on the night, and the devastation they saw as they emerged the next morning.

Mary, now aged 91 and living in Bedworth, rode her bicycle to the shelter – in the cellar of the flour mill in Swanswell Street, Hillfields – just as the incendiary bombs started to fall just after 7pm.

"There was so much fire it was like it was daylight, I’d never seen such a thing in all my life," she told the Telegraph.

Among those huddled together on flour sacks in the cold, dark cellar were one of Mary’s other sisters Edith, and their mum Florence.

"The bombs were dropping all night long, you wondered if it was your turn next," said Mary.

"You just kept ducking down, sitting there in silence.

"We heard the hospital had gone, then the cathedral. Edie slept right through it, but I felt sorry for my mum, having been through a war before.